


Not For All Markets

by SoManyRegrets



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angst and Humor, Drunkenness, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 20:10:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7771471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoManyRegrets/pseuds/SoManyRegrets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> “Ok,” Josh said, dragging himself together. “I’m gonna go find Mark. You,” he said, prodding Tyler in the shoulder, “are going to stay here. And geez, do </i>not<i> offer to suck anyone else’s dick.”</i></p>
<p>So as it turns out, being propositioned by your drunk best friend really, really sucks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not For All Markets

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! There's two of us. We're new here. Be nice?
> 
> Title is from As You Like It, because we're pretentious lil shits.
> 
> We have many regrets. So many, in fact.

In hindsight, letting Tyler match Mark drink for drink had been a mistake. Mark himself had raised an eyebrow, looked at Tyler, then Josh and said ‘Your funeral, man.”

Josh maybe should have asked which one of them he’d been talking to.

Tyler drank less than anyone else Josh had ever met, including Josh himself. A few beers now and then; occasionally, something stronger, if pressed. Otherwise his drug of choice was caffeine, which he abused relentlessly. 

As a friend of five years’ standing, Josh knew perfectly well why - Tyler could not hold his alcohol - but apparently Tyler thought he needed a reminder every so often. Which was why Tyler was lying facedown on the cracked vinyl of their booth, giggling silently.

“You ok there, man?” he said nervously across the table to the back of Tyler’s head.

Tyler exploded into giggles once more. “Yeah. It’s just….. Mark, man.”

“Yeah,” Josh said slowly.

“He’s so old. Like. He’s gonna be dead soon.”

“Wow,” Josh said, and took another gulp of the beer he’d been nursing all night. His post-tour routine generally entailed treating his body a bit better than he usually did on the road.

Tyler pushed himself up off the bench and wobbled his way round to Josh’s side of the table. It looked dangerous. Instinctively, Josh held out his arms to brace his fall. Tyler, very drunk, took it as an invitation, and trust-fell into his arms. Josh gasped as Tyler’s full bodyweight landed heavily on his forearms. He gingerly lowered his arms, and then regretted it, as he ended up with Tyler facedown in his lap, with apparently no plans to move.

“Maaaaaaaan,’ Tyler said into the denim of his thigh. “Your arms are like….so great.”

“Ow,” Josh said pointedly. As usual, Tyler didn’t take the hint.

“Josh. Josh. Joshie. Josh Dun. Dun roamin’. Totally Dun.” His own wit proved too much for Tyler and he collapsed into giggles. Josh waited patiently for them to subside. He was pretty sure they’d come out with other people - it was, after all, a birthday party - which begged the question, where the heck were they and why weren’t they helping the drunk friend instead of Josh. Josh had Tyler all tour. He was off-duty. 

Then he felt bad for thinking it, and offered Tyler his beer in recompense. Since Tyler was still facedown in his lap, it didn’t make much of a difference. 

“Y’know, I kind of had plans for the night,” Josh said wistfully. “When Mark said ‘oh hey, it’s my birthday, so we have to come out to some crappy club and drink crappy beer,’ I thought ‘oh well, not a dead loss.’ I spend some time with my friends, I help Mark celebrate his birthday… Maybe I hook up with someone - some guy, some girl-“

“Meeeeeeee,” Tyler put in with something weirdly like hope. Josh patted his head absently.

“- maybe we hook up, maybe we dance a bit, maybe I go home by myself. Maybe I don’t. But at no point did I think ‘y’know what would make tonight really special?’” he asked the empty booth, his hand patting Tyler’s head rather more forcefully than he had intended, “‘if my friend Tyler passed out completely wasted in my gosh darn lap.’”

Tyler, not entirely cognisant of what was happening above his head, caught his own name and cheered faintly, raising his arm up in a salute that nearly caught Josh on the nose. Josh pulled back just in time and Tyler’s arm fell limply back in front of him, Superman-style.

“But y’know, this is fine too,” Josh told him, resuming the head-patting. Abruptly, Tyler rolled over, and for a brief second, Josh was patting his face. “Oh hey. Are you ok? D’you wanna go home?”

Tyler was staring at him with the sort of lambent earnestness that Josh had learnt to fear. “Nooooooo,” he whined, clumsily patting Josh’s face, presumably in retaliation. Josh winced. “You should…. like totally….. you know….”

“Nope,” Josh said cheerfully. “You are not being clear at all. Communicate, man. Use your words.”

Tyler snorted, apparently annoyed at this completely reasonable demand, and said clearly, “If…. you wanna hook up….you should totally hook up with someone.”

“Thanks, man,” Josh said, smiling. Tyler was a dork, but his heart was always in the right place.

“You should hook up with me,” Tyler said brightly and Josh took back every nice thought he’d ever had about Tyler, because Tyler was reneging on their unspoken rule that he never took advantage of how much Josh was in love with him, because that wasn’t cool. 

“Not cool, dude,” Josh said, frowning down at him. 

Tyler’s brow furrowed. “What? No. You should. Totally make out with me, like I’m good at it! I think! I’m mostly, I think, quite good at it, I’ve been told-“

“This ain’t a performance review, Ty, I’m not gonna make out with you. Sorry,” Josh added perfunctorily, patting Tyler’s stomach to make up for it.

Tyler was silent for two blessed seconds then, “Ooh!” he chirped, perking up. “I know. I could totally suck your dick!”

“What?” No!” Josh yelped and instinctively tried to cover the area in question. Unfortunately, that area was already covered by Tyler, whose head was already providing quite a painful pressure.

“Why not?” Tyler asked, ludicrously petulant.

“Well’ Josh said, straining after a calm he was far from feeling, “Number one, we’re friends, not…. special friends, and number two, you’re straight. That’s kind of a dealbreaker for me.”

“I’m not straight!” Tyler said indignantly. “I worship at the altar of cock!”

“You what?” Josh temporarily lost control of the situation and started laughing hysterically. Tyler’s affronted expression didn’t help. He laughed until he cried. “Oh man. Oh gosh. Sorry. Sorry. How’s about we get you home?”

Tyler scowled at him. “I want,” he said clearly, “to suck your dick.”

Any and all humour abruptly left Josh’s soul. “No,” he said defensively. 

“Ok,” Tyler said, annoyingly reasonable. “Why not?”

“Well, for starters,” Josh said. “You still haven’t convinced me you’re not straight.”

Tyler had the audacity to roll his eyes. “I don’t tell you everything.”

“No,” Josh allowed fairly, forgetting he was arguing with a drunk person and that fairness was completely useless.

“Ha!” Tyler crowed, triumphant.”You admit it!”

“Wait, I admit what?”

“That you want me to suck your dick!” Tyler said, far too loudly for Josh’s comfort. Columbus was a liberal town, but even so.

“Oh my god, that is not at all what I just said,” Josh hissed fiercely. “Don’t talk. Just don’t say anything. Not another word.”

Mercifully Tyler fell briefly silent, allowing Josh a small reprieve.

“Ok,” Josh said, dragging himself together. “I’m gonna go find Mark. You,” he said, prodding Tyler in the shoulder, “are going to stay here. And geez, do _not_ offer to suck anyone else’s dick.”

Tyler looked offended. “I wouldn’t! Come on, man! I am a one-man dick - wait, no. A one-dick man,” he said carefully and then collapsed into giggles while Josh looked beseechingly at the ceiling.

“C’mon, Lord,” he muttered, shifting his body out from under Tyler. “If you love me as much as you say you do. Just one little lightning strike. Maybe two.”

He successfully extricated himself from Tyler’s tentacle clutches and then heaved him into a vaguely upright position in the booth. Tyler, still giggling, let himself be manoeuvred, and then hunched over the table, one hand curling protectively around Josh’s beer.

“That’s mine,” Josh said pointlessly and went off in search of Mark.

**

Somewhat predictably, Mark was surrounded by the people who had once been Josh’s friends, before their callous desertion.

“Great party, I’m gonna take Tyler home, happy birthday, okay, bye,” he bellowed over the sound of Kylie Minogue.

Mark’s forehead wrinkled in confusion, and then straightened. He gave Josh a decidedly lopsided thumbs-up and Josh beamed and bounced, conscience clear. His conversation with Mark about his responsibilities never to make Josh endure this again could wait until another time.

True to his word, Tyler was exactly where Josh had left him. He was still slumped over the table, now mumbling a tuneless song and tracing patterns in the condensation left by his beer with one finger. It was sad and endearing but mostly funny. Josh debated filming it for later mockery purposes and then decided that ‘I worship at the altar of cock’ would provide material for the next ten years, and that right now, he loved his phone considerably more than he loved Tyler.

“Alright,” he said, coming up to the booth and looping one of Tyler’s arms around his shoulder. “It’s home-time. Home-time for sleepy boys, c’mon.”

“I’m not sleepy,” Tyler said, and he did sound wide-awake.

“You will be soon,” Josh said shortly. “You’ll crash in the cab, and then I’ll have to carry your heavy ass to bed.”

Tyler visibly cheered up. “So then I can suck your dick, right?”

“No!” Josh said, exasperated. “Like, seriously, why?”

“Do you not want me to?” Tyler said, frowning a little. By this point, they were staggering through the bar and this was definitely not a conversation Josh wanted to have in public.

“That is beside the point!” he said shrilly. 

“No,” Tyler said, resting his head on Josh’s shoulder as they lurched towards the exit. “It is not. I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want me to do. Josh? Josh? Are you listening?”

“Yes,” Josh said, deeply put-upon. “I’m listening. But this whole thing is ridiculous, so I’m not listening, like, metaphorically.”

There was a couple of seconds’ silence while Tyler digested this and Josh manoeuvred them with difficulty out of the swinging doors and into the street. The only saving grace of the entire nightmare-situation was that Tyler had never been a handsy drunk and he limited the physical manifestations of his ardour to staring longingly at Josh’s crotch, which was uncomfortable but easy to ignore. Then:

“I could totally suck your dick,” Tyler said with quiet confidence.

“Please,” Josh said pleadingly. “Please stop saying that.”

“But if you want me to-“

“I didn’t say that,” Josh said, poking Tyler in the chest with his free hand, hoping that this would confuse drunk-Tyler enough to let the subject lapse.

“So you don’t want to-“

“Please shut up,” Josh said, driven to extremes. Mercifully, Tyler deflated long enough for Josh to get him a cab. In the orange glow of the streetlights as they moved away from the bar and towards the suburbs, Tyler looked small and sad, hunched in his own corner of the cab. Josh felt absurdly and unreasonably bad given he’d been objectified for most of the evening and that all he’d done was deflect the unwelcome advances of his best friend.

Nevertheless, he reached out and patted Tyler’s knee. “Y’know,” he said quietly so the driver wouldn’t hear. “I’m sure you’d’ve done a great job. Of. You know. That.”

“Sucking your dick?” Tyler said, sweetly malicious and Josh did a complete 180 into hating him again. “Like, seriously?” he said, plaintive, turning away from the window so his face was weirdly silhouetted in orange light. “Why don’t you want to? Give me one good reason and I swear I’ll never mention it again.”

“Tyler,” Josh said helplessly. “I don’t want you to.”

There was a pause and the cab stopped at a red light. Tyler pointed at Josh in the dark. “Yes,” he said, smiling a little. “There it is. There’s the reason.”

He didn’t speak for the rest of the journey, and Josh, who had thought he would feel better having made himself clear, felt about ten times worse. When they reached Tyler’s house, Tyler got out and lurched on spindly legs in the vague direction of his front door. Josh thrust some notes at the cab-driver and went to rescue him from the rhododendron. 

They got indoors and Tyler slumped into an armchair. “I,” he said grandly, “am never going to Mark’s birthday party again.”

“Good idea, buddy,” Josh said. He put the coffee machine onto decaf, and for a moment, the only sound was the steady drip-drip of the filter. Finally, Josh cracked. “Look. I’m sorry, I’ve hurt your feelings and you’re sad,” which was the worst thing in the world. “But you have to understand why it’s not fair. I don’t want to do this now, but we can talk about it later, if you want?”

Tyler glared at him from his self-appointed throne, hands dangling off the arm-rests. “No we can’t,” he said, ever contrary.

“Why not?” Josh said with what he felt was undeserved patience.

Tyler looked sheepish. “Cause I’m drunk. Cause I’m brave now. I mean, I’ve made - like, my whole career is about telling people how they should be brave and do things that scare them, and I can’t even do this one thing, and it should be the easiest thing in the world, but it’s you, so it isn’t, y’know?”

“No?” Josh said, completely lost. “Ok.” He poured Tyler some decaf coffee, grabbed some for himself and beckoned Tyler through into his room. “What I’m hearing is, you can’t have this conversation sober. Right?”

Tyler nodded slowly.

“Ok. And,” Josh sighed. “I can’t have this conversation while you’re drunk. So maybe we should just…not….have it.” It was the coward’s way out, but the coward’s way out had worked for Josh so far. 

Tyler groaned, took his coffee and sat down on his bed. “Ugh. No. We have to.”

“No! Noooo,” Josh said eagerly. “No we don’t. Repression is the mother of invention. Or something. Anyway, a little repression goes a long way. We’ll be fine, Ty.”

“No,” Tyler said stubbornly, staring at his lap.

Suddenly tired, Josh rubbed his hand across his forehead. “Gosh, Tyler. Go to sleep, yeah? Look,” he sat down next to him and nudged Tyler’s knee with his own. “If you can talk about this sober, I promise we will. Ok?”

“Kay,” Tyler’s expression said that nothing would ever be ok again, but he nodded and took off his shirt, rapidly followed by his jeans. Josh, used to Tyler’s complete lack of inhibitions, ushered him into bed and patted the duvet.

“I’mna get you some water and Tylenol for when you wake up, alright?”

“Uh-huh,” Tyler already sounded sleepy, damn him. It was one am, and Josh wanted to be asleep, like, now. He dragged himself back into Tyler’s kitchen to get a jug of water and some pills from his medicine kit. By the time he got back, Tyler was snoring, face half-mashed into his pillow. 

Grinning despite himself, Josh left the water and the painkillers by the bed and went to find the spare room.

**

Morning dawned, brighter than Josh could have wished, given how insubstantial the curtains were in Tyler’s spare room - but he slept until ten am by dint of pulling the covers over his head and pretending the sun didn’t exist. 

Unsurprisingly, when he emerged from the spare room, Tyler was nowhere to be seen. Josh set about his normal morning routine: cereal, coffee and snapchat. It was getting on for eleven before Tyler eventually woke up. Josh was alerted to his presence by the howls of damned coming from his bedroom.   
“Augh,” said Tyler, wandering into the kitchen and squinting against the cloudy Columbus sky, “I wanna die.”

His hair had fluffed up to a ridiculous degree, his eyes were red and he was sporting some magnificent pillow creases down one cheek, and Josh loved him, goddamnit. The world was so unfair. Ever sympathetic to the plights of his fellow man, Josh cackled. “You ok there, buddy?” he said, just a little bit too loud, just to see Tyler wince.

“Aaah, don’t,” Tyler winced satisfyingly, and collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table. 

“Coffee?” Josh asked smugly. 

“Babe,” Tyler said pathetically.

“Brah,” Josh said back, pouring him some fully-caffeinated coffee and put it down in front of him.

Instead of scarfing it down as he usually did, Tyler curled his hands around his Number #1 Son Mug and looked sheepishly into its contents.

“Are you ok?” Josh said tentatively, anticipating what was coming next.

“Dude,” Tyler said sincerely. “I am so sorry. Like. So sorry. Oh gosh.”

Josh’s heart sank. He’d thought he’d known that being in love with his straight best friend was a terrible idea and that nothing would ever come of it, and that to a certain extent he was just wilfully making himself miserable; but apparently some stupid, fairytale part of him had just been clinging to the idea of a fairytale ending. He watched as it ebbed away. And then smiled, with effort. “Ah, man. It’s ok. I knew you didn’t mean it - we all do crazy shit when we’re drunk. And anyway,” he said, talking over Tyler when it looked as though Tyler was about to say something. “you’ve officially tried to experiment with a guy! You’re a man now!”

Tyler wasn’t smiling. “You said we could have this conversation when I was sober.”

“What?” Josh said, suddenly alert and uncomfortable.

“There’s just something I don’t understand,” Tyler said slowly, still looking at his coffee. “Last night, you said it wasn’t fair, and I don’t get it. Sure, I totally get that it was a douche thing to do, and oh my gosh, I am so sorry to put you on the spot like that-“

“Wow, you remember last night,” Josh said, trying for humour. It wasn’t easy.

“Yeah,” Tyler said dryly. “All of it, before you ask. Look, you said it wasn’t fair. What’s not fair?”

“Dude,” Josh said, turning back to the counter and pretending to pour himself some more coffee so Tyler wouldn’t see his face. “C’mon. You know.”

“No. I don’t. That’s kind of the point. I don’t ask questions just for kicks and giggles, Josh, you know that. Something’s eating you, and it’s not just me insisting that I suck your dick-“

Josh squeaked despite himself.

“- there’s something else bothering you, and I’m worried. Is it something I’ve done?”

That was a low blow and Josh felt comfortably pissed. He shut his eyes. “You know perfectly well it’s not something you’ve done.”

“No!” Now it was Tyler’s turn to sound exasperated. “No, I don’t! Come on Josh, let’s not have this conversation like,” he released his death-grip on his mug to flutter his hands dramatically, “‘oh no, well if you don’t know what it is you’ve done, then I’m not going to tell you,’ c’mon,” he said, glaring at Josh.

Josh glared right back with the best of them. “Come on yourself. We don’t talk about the fact that I’m in love with you. We never have, and we’re not gonna start now. You are straight. I am not. And I will get over it.” It was an oft-repeated mantra of his. Tyler looked completely blindsided, and Josh felt something uncomfortable squirm in the pit of his stomach. “You- you really didn’t know.”

Tyler let out a wavering breath and unclenched his hands from his coffee cup. “No,” he said, carefully measured. “No, I did not. Really, though?” Josh just looked at him. “OK, that’s a yes. Wow. I - honestly, I didn’t see this one coming.”

“Yeah,” Josh with just a hint of bitterness. “I figured.”

“No,” Tyler said, and he actually sounded irritated, which just made Josh irritated in turn. “Not because I’m surprised or upset, it’s because I’m pissed. I’ve been in love with you for like a year.”

“No, you haven’t,” Josh said automatically.

Tyler glared at him, full-on angry. “Buddy, don’ even,” he said. “You don’t get to tell me how I feel, kay? That’s not cool. I fell in love with you one time when you were doing an interview, and I wasn’t, and they asked you some stupid question about, gosh, I dunno, some celebrity thing, and you just looked over at me, and you grinned, and I thought, ‘ah, heck, this is gonna make things _so awkward_.’” He shrugged, looking back down at his coffee again. “I dunno, yesterday, I guess I thought I’d just - I’d just see if I could have one chance with you, and then, like, find someone else and get over you.”

He lapsed into silence, and for a second they just stared at each other.

Then Josh took a deep breath. “Wow. So, like, I’m so cross?” 

“I know right?” Tyler agreed, quirking a grin at him. “A whole year. We coulda been-“

“Yeah,” Josh agreed. 

There was another long pause.

“Just to clarify,” Josh said, because he really didn’t feel that this was something he could just take on trust. “This whole… love… thing. It’s…?” he gestured expansively between them.

“Mutual?” Tyler suggested dryly. 

“Yeah, that,” Josh nodded. “We. We should really have talked more.”

“Yes,” Tyler agreed, staring at him. “Because what our relationship really lacks is communication.”

“Well, clearly we’re lacking _some_ communication,” Josh said.

“Urgh, fine. You win. But, no, wait, it doesn’t matter, because I win _too_ , because now we’re _dating_ ,” Tyler said with satisfaction.

“I didn’t agree to that,” Josh pointed out primly.

Tyler stared at him, abruptly aghast. “Wh- wait, I- what? I- that’s-“ Josh cackled, and Tyler rolled his eyes, grinning in spite of himself. “Oh, just get over here and kiss me.”

**

“So… _now_ can I suck your dick?”

**

**Author's Note:**

> If Josh Dun doesn't call his house 'Dun Roamin', we will be disappointed for the rest of our lives.


End file.
